Hectic Hong Kong
Trip Start
Sep 01, 2007
1
52
58
Trip End
Oct 22, 2007
Hong Kong,
China
Saturday, October 20, 2007
After that we spent some time just relaxing at the hotel. After 50 days of travelling and continuously on the go it feels quite strange to just relax.
Cindy had told us that Mongkok is the area to visit for shopping. Apparently the name in Chinese means "flourishing/busy corner" and that it is. It is a relatively small area of a few small streets jam packed with shops and stalls. The three main streets each occupy about two small blocks each and are "Camera Street", "Market Street" and "Sneakers Street"
Monkok Madness
. We visited "Camera Street" which has cameras, mobile phones, computers and anything else electronic you may want. We went into a few of the shops to look at some of the things we "need" and would consider buying but, as fascinating as the street is, we did not buy anything. In the past Hong Kong was renowned for having the most modern and unobtainable electronic devices, the best prices and the willingness to haggle over bargain prices. Sadly that is no more. According to one of the shop attendants we spoke to and from our own looking around we can buy the same technology in London for LOWER prices! It was also clear that Westerners are completely outnumbered (it felt like by thousands!) and insignificant, the business is with the Mainland Chinese. The shops are no longer even willing to negotiate, we tried. Never mind, if we really need these electronics we can confidently buy them in London :-)We also peered in at "Market Street" but it was just too manic for us so we avoided that and "Sneakers Street" and headed back to the hotel.
Later on we met Cindy at the ferry and went across on the famous Star Ferry to Hong Kong Island to meet Stella for supper. We had a delicious, very spicy Thai meal at a restaurant on the famous Hong Kong Mid-Levels, home to the world's longest escalator / travelator system. In the morning all the escalators/ travelators go down for the people going to work and then from mid-morning until late night they go up to save people having to walk up the many stairs.
After supper we caught a tram to an area called "Happy Valley". It is home to the Hong Kong Jockey Club, a race course and many flats where middle-income families can afford to live. It is also where people go after supper for dessert. So, when in "Rome"... we had dessert. Well Annie, Cindy and Stella did as all the dessert was sago pudding of various styles and flavours, something I have not been able to eat since I first tried it at boarding school, the coffee was very good though :-) At boarding school we used to call sago pudding "frogs eggs", scarily enough they actually had a real frogs eggs pudding on the menu. No thanks!
